KUNAI

The silky animation, refined control scheme, and creative options for decimating your foes presents a highly polished metroidvania with wide appeal.

Kunai is the next great Metroidvania on Switch. It could easily stand toe-to-toe with the likes of Ori and the Blind Forest and The Messenger, especially in how effortless moving around and traversing the world is. This is as close to a must-play as I can recommend. You're a tablet who plays like Spider-Man, and everything looks beautiful. Kunai is excellent.

Kunai is one of those games that doesn't innovate in the Metroidvania genre but achieve what it wants, being a difficult and a really great title. It also offers a great soundtrack and good gameplay.

If you’re looking for a fast-paced, action-packed adventure where you can pull off some sweet parkour moves all the while wielding Ninja weapons, I highly recommend checking out Kunai. The controls are incredibly easy to learn but not easy to master, making this a superb game for beginners in the genre to our hardcore speedrunning fans. Not to mention paired with a unique if, albeit simple story, interesting story design and wonderful art design, you really can’t go wrong with this title.

With personality and polish to spare, Kunai hits its mark. [Issue #46 – May/June 2020, p. 19]

Whether you're a fan of Metroidvania style platformers or are just looking for a fun game that's easy to jump in and kill some time, KUNAI is an excellent option.

Overall Kunai is a very capable Metroidvania clone that can easily stand up with the rest. It also offers its own unique charm and style to make it a game really worth spending your time and money on.

From its charming visuals to its smooth action-packed gameplay, Kunai is a fittingly sharp and enjoyable experience.

Kunai comes together as one of the premium Metroidvania offerings on the Nintendo Switch. Some flawed design here and there and light story aspects aren’t enough to detract from the excellent gameplay offerings, top-notch pixel graphics, and clean aesthetic.

If you are a fan of robot ninja action or you’re just looking for the next Neo-classic Metroivania title with a hint of Bionic Commando thrown in for good measure, KUNAI delivers a very satisfying experience.

Kunai isn't revolutionary and initially reminded me of a high-end flash game with its focus on Spiderman-esque swinging and rapid-fire sword action. But playing it further revealed a game that got deeper and more fun as it went along. The premise is tired, but the game's dialogue and general demeanor made it clear that the story wasn't a priority when it came to making this game. After all, who can criticize a game that has a main character named Tabby McTabletface?

Kunai is a great action-platformer that reminds us of Metroid, thanks to its great level design and solid gameplay. It’s not very original, but we had a great time with it.

Kunai is a solid game. The genre formula sticks to the blueprint well enough to not mess it up. The game is of a decent length, and it has the right amount of difficulty most of the time, but the kunai movement sells you on what makes the game enjoyable. For genre fans, this is well worth checking out.

If you're looking for a classic "metroidvania" with ninja abilities, that's just what Kunai offers: explore levels, kill enemies, push switches, get new abilities, kill bosses, get to new areas... and start all over again. All with a great Game Boy visual style, but in the end, it feels like a pretty conventional game.

The problem is, no matter how charming Kunai is, it’s still a Metroidvania at heart. You’re still going back and forth all the time, slowly expanding your map as you gain more powers. It adds up to a couple of hours of fun, followed by a couple more hours of feeling like you’re doing a lot of the same actions over and over again. Still, that’s at least half a good game in there, which isn’t too bad, all things considered. Kunai isn’t going to make me rethink my attitude towards the entire genre, but if you’re looking for a Metroidvania that at least does all kinds of things right, you’re certainly looking in the right direction here.

While Kunai might not stand toe-to-toe with the likes of Ori or Hollow Knight, there’s much to love, including fantastic controls, rewarding secrets, and zesty facial expressions. This little tablet has a lot of heart, and a lot of hats.

Kunai is a short and sweet metroidvania with an exciting premise. In this era of rapid technological change, however, Kunai ultimately doesn’t do enough to separate itself from the pack.

Kunai is a wonderful game that I am sure rewards a high level of mastery over its mechanics. It looks great, sounds amazing, and plays quite well for the most part. However, the bugs I encountered and some of the lackluster designs throughout the game often made me either sleepy-bored or frustrated at being killed by events largely out of my control. It feels clunky at some points and I believe needs just a bit more refining but it is a great game underneath it all.

Thanks to some great controls and a diverse and satisfying set of weapons and tools, Kunai overcomes its weaknesses in level design to become a solid, fun platformer.

The game may stumble on occasion from a lack of earlier detailing, with narrative and backdrop never feeling best-served to those looking for a bit more story. But the free-flowing confidence and care-free nature baked into Kunai above all still marks this down as a good (not great) starting point for Metroidvania fans going forth into the new decade.

Indie games in the Metroidvania genre are pretty common, but Kunai manages to stands out with exceptionally fluid combat, a wonderful Game Boy Color aesthetic, and swinging around on your kunai. The swinging mechanic is the star of the show here, even if the design of your limited arsenal shows some clear thought went into making every weapon meaningful. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to figure out where you're supposed to go at times, backtracking in Kunai is a bit of a pain, and the level design doesn't offer as many branching paths as its competition. But it's worth playing through the game's short runtime and this is a great foundation for a sequel.

The combat balances its melee and ranged weapons, and the enemies offer enough unique challenges. It may not excel at the things Metroidvania games are generally known for, but Kunai is a fun action-platformer in its own right.

Kunai is a classic yet breathless metroidvania game, which capitalize on its strong action and fun narration. The sympathic Tabby and its variety of expressions is a bless to see, but the art direction suffers from its unflattering minimalism, and endless boss patterns that grows on frustration.

It's disappointing that there isn't more to dig into when it comes down to Kunai's set dressing, especially when it's paired with such a striking visual style and engrossing combat. Kunai's level design pushes you to keep adapting while affording you the space to finish off a group of enemies with a series of pinpoint grappling hook swings, precise double jumps, and intelligently integrated swings of your sword. Kunai loses some of its momentum far too frequently, but when it hits a balance between its engrossing combat and satisfying platforming, it's difficult to put down.

Kunai knows grappling hooks are cool, so it gives you two of them. But beyond its best feature, it's an indie adventure that falls just a bit short of its excellent peers.

Kunai is an expressive, stylish and retro-tinged metroidvania that kept me engaged the entire time I played it. The feeling of slowly mastering the rope-kunai and being able to flawlessly swing around environments and flank enemies was incredibly satisfying. I only wish the rest of your abilities in the game had the same kind of skill ceiling to reach, because without any cool reasons to deflect bullets, why bother having the ability to do so in the first place?

Kunai is a competent and attractive Metroidvania title let down by uninspired game design, underutilized mechanics, and some bugs. Lovers of the genre will still enjoy this game, as will players who love a strong visual aesthetic. If you don't fit into either of those categories, then Kunai may not be the best option for you.

Kunai is again a good metroidvania as we have seen many times before in the last couple of years. The grappling hooks are fun to use, but the environment in the game is a tad boring.

The Switch is fast becoming the perfect home for roguelikes, and Kunai is in esteemed company. The game holds itself well and is great fun, even if it lacks any real innovation. The unique weapon combinations can make each run different and interesting, but the repetitive nature of each level means that Kunai's replayability could be in doubt.

With various weapons, mobility enhancements, and a sprawling series of connected maps, Kunai appears to have all the right components, but they aren’t assembled into a cohesive whole.